Charles Williams (August 13, 1909 – ca. April 7, 1975) was an American writer of hardboiled crime fiction. He is regarded by critics as one of the finest suspense novelists of the 1950s and 1960s. His 1951 debut, the pulp paperback novel Hill Girl, sold over a million copies. A dozen of his books have been adapted for the screen, most popularly Dead Calm.
Williams was born in the central Texas town of San Angelo. After attending school through te...
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Charles Williams (August 13, 1909 – ca. April 7, 1975) was an American writer of hardboiled crime fiction. He is regarded by critics as one of the finest suspense novelists of the 1950s and 1960s. His 1951 debut, the pulp paperback novel Hill Girl, sold over a million copies. A dozen of his books have been adapted for the screen, most popularly Dead Calm.
Williams was born in the central Texas town of San Angelo. After attending school through tenth grade, in 1929 he enlisted in the US Merchant Marine. He served for ten years before leaving to marry Lasca Foster. Having trained as a radioman during his seafaring career, Williams worked as an electronics inspector, first for RCA in Galveston, Texas, later at Puget Sound Navy Yard in Washington State through the end of World War II. He and his wife then moved to San Francisco, where he worked at Mackay Radio until the publication of his first novel, Hill Girl, in 1951. It was a great success, and Williams spent the rest of his...
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